


hold the holy saber, please

by loveyoumore (purplecity)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Enemies, M/M, inspired by the devil is a part timer, this is pretty stupid btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:36:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29140146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplecity/pseuds/loveyoumore
Summary: Little did Doyoung know ordering a small veggie pizza would disrupt his expertly crafted, perfectly mundane, human-adjusted life.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	hold the holy saber, please

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this to celebrate doyoung day :')

For the half-drowsy, half-hungry Doyoung, it's just another late night shift at the library, spent under a warm blanket (his cardigan) and with an insulated bottle of hot tea (sencha, brand ITO EN). 

Little did Doyoung know ordering a small veggie pizza would disrupt his expertly crafted, perfectly mundane, human-adjusted life.

Sure, he's not allowed to order pizza using the library's landline or eat within a fifteen meter radius around the books. But when he knows Manager Kun is sleeping at his desk in the back room and there's not a single soul in the library other than himself, it'd honestly be a waste to ignore the pop-up ad for local pizza delivery and its promise of FRESH DOUGH, BAKED DAILY. 

So he orders a pizza. Clutching the handset, he scrolls through their website and recites his exact order to the employee on the other end who parrots it monotonously. 

And he waits a peaceful, stomach-grumbling ten minutes until the library doors swing open, a cold gust of rainstorm wind tossing his hair back.

"Delivery for, uh…" Pizza Man dressed in a painfully red and yellow uniform closes his umbrella, taking a couple steps inside. "Kim Doyoung?"

Doyoung lifts his face from the desktop. "Yes. Over here."

Guided by Doyoung's voice, Pizza Man approaches the counter, pizza box leveled in his gloved hand.

"That'll be 11,000 won."

"Just a second." 

Doyoung's hand digs through an inner pocket of his overcoat, fishing for his wallet. He hums in satisfaction when he finds its leathery material. Just as he picks out the cash and stretches his arm, expecting Pizza Man to accept it, he's instead met with a horrified expression.

Doyoung almost scrunches his face in confusion, but he too realizes what's happening and mirrors that incredulous look.

"It's… It's _you,_ " Doyoung says, raspy.

How could he not have seen it earlier? 

Those eyes. The atrociously large forehead and sharp jawline. The little creases at the ends of his lips.

 _Of course_ he remembers them and the handsome face that they compose. It was the same face that had sworn would drive his holy saber into Doyoung's heart, after all. The same face that spoke the incantation to strip Doyoung of his power, to banish him from his home realm. 

It was _Justice._ The one and only reason why Doyoung is ordering a pizza on his night shift because he got hungry and neglected to pack himself a dinner.

" _You!_ " 

Sudden rage swells inside of Doyoung. His hand reaches for the nearest available object: his water bottle. 

The steel bottle moves in one great swing. Doyoung is fast but, as he's fully aware, so is Justice—his preferred weapon is the umbrella, flecks of rainwater flying as he retaliates Doyoung's bottle attack.

They hold this position, water dripping onto the carpet and warm wafts of veggie pizza filling their noses. Two unrelenting forces pushing against one another. 

" _Doevil?_ " says Justice, using their native language. He bares his teeth with one powerful heave, the stem of his umbrella slowly leaning towards Doyoung. Even in this ungodly realm, he's strong. "Why are _you_ here?"

Doyoung's eye twitches. His arms tremble under the weight of Justice's umbrella, but he maintains a mostly steady stance with his trusty bottle.

"Don't give me that shit. You know exactly why I'm here," Doyoung hisses. 

Why is _Justice_ out of all people here—that's the real question. Doyoung's tried hundreds, thousands of times to open a portal to take himself literally _anywhere_ other than 'South Korea', every attempt resulting in nothing. This place is an infinite cage with no escape. No demon or angel belongs here.

And _why_ is he the one delivering his pizza?

"Hey— Wait!" Doyoung yells, very much ignoring library rules. To his astonishment, Justice has turned on his heel and is dashing out the building, never mind the pouring rain.

And he still has Doyoung's pizza.

Doyoung nearly trips over himself sprinting out the door, hand clutching his bottle tightly.

"Come back here!" he shouts, and Justice flicks his head over his shoulder for a brief confirmation before accelerating. 

Doyoung spews a flurry of curse words, both in his native language and Korean as he's running down the street. Water puddles collecting in the valleys between sidewalk tiles splash against his khakis, which fucking sucks because they're a new pair that he was excited to purchase when UNIQLO went on a nation-wide sale last Tuesday.

They're at the city square now. Justice's evidently tired from the running, needing to stop for a couple heavy breaths.

Doyoung catches up to him soon after and there's another clash of their weapons, umbrella versus insulated bottle. Perhaps because of his pent-up rage directed at Justice, the holy warrior who ruined his life on the fateful final day of the Thousand Year War, Doyoung yells his frustrations. They're not words—just his raw cries. 

Justice takes them with a serious face, brows turned in his growing fatigue. If not for the rain dousing the two, they'd both be visibly sweating from the temples.

"You destroyed me," Doyoung says, seething. 

Their weapons are crossed in the space between their faltering chests, arms shuddering as they push their mortal body's limit as far as possible. It's honestly a surprise that neither the umbrella nor the bottle are misshapen by their furious swordfighting (if, that is, they pretend the umbrella is Justice's holy saber and the bottle is Doyoung's demon blade).

Justice's gaze is firm. "It was the Council's will."

Doyoung scowls, readjusting his grip on his bottle. "You do _not_ know how hard it was to learn this strange human language and… and do taxes and pay rent. Fucking rent, Justice!"

It seems Justice's patience wears off too, with the rainwater darkening his hair and drenching his employee uniform.

"I know how fucking hard it is, _demon,_ " Justice returns, jaw clenched, leaning in with one heavy push against Doyoung's bottle. "I've been doing exactly that for the past six months after the Council betrayed me and tried to banish me to the underworld, leaving me with no fucking choice but to flee here."

Doyoung pauses.

"Oh."

There's a wordless agreement for them to loosen their grip, to take a slow step back from one another and reconsider their withering anger. The air is mellowed by the rain droning against the concrete, making their clothes cling to their skin.

It's calm now—Doyoung hears the ambiance of a rainy city night. The resonating downpour, distant cars driving by, Justice's soft panting, the small crowd of spectators that had formed around them whispering in amusement.

Oh.

Doyoung's cheeks flush brightly. 

A pair of girls in high school uniforms snicker, one of them not so discreetly recording their skirmish on her phone. Doyoung glances back to Justice, who seems just as embarrassed by the situation.

Once it's clear that they won't be resuming the intense fight, the people watching shrug, disinterested.

The crowd dissipates until it's, once again, just Doyoung and his arch nemesis. They stand there in the center of the city, battered with raindrops, simply feeling defeated—in all sorts of ways.

The silence is as loud as the downpour. 

Eventually it's Doyoung who breaks the awkward silence, eyeing the pizza box tucked under Justice's arm.

"I was kinda looking forward to eating that."

Justice blinks. He holds the pizza box in front of himself and lifts the cardboard cover a couple inches, grimaces, then closes it again.

"I'll... make you a new one."

  
  


  
  


  
  


Doyoung squints at the name tag.

"'Jung Jaehyun'? Is that seriously your name?"

Jaehyun glares at Doyoung from behind the counter, gathering ingredients for veggie pizza number two. "Is there a problem, 'Kim Doyoung'?"

"It's lame."

"Do you want me to burn your pizza, _Doyoung-ssi_?"

With an inaudible grumble, Doyoung seats himself at one of the tables. He's still hungry after everything—even more so, in fact, after a year's worth of exercise that completely burned through his remaining energy (if librarians have any to begin with).

It's a good thing that the pizza place was empty by the time they arrived. Doyoung's had enough embarrassment at the city square, and being drenched in rainwater only adds insult to injury. He's agitated by how what should've been a cozy night of pizza at the library spiraled out of control, turning into a holy mess of old friends, old lovers, old enemies meeting in the most unlikely place.

Doyoung sighs. He feels water trickling down his back, his legs, pooling into his shoes, forming a little puddle underneath his chair, and by god is it uncomfortable.

Jaehyun slides the uncooked veggie pizza into the oven, pushing a couple buttons and blinks at Doyoung slumped over the table.

A moment passes, and Jaehyun emerges from the kitchen.

"Here," says Jaehyun, handing Doyoung a towel. "Dry yourself off."

Doyoung lifts his head, his eyes shifting between the towel and Jaehyun's mostly neutral expression. He accepts the towel—but not without bringing it to his nose and sniffing.

"Isn't this... what you guys use to wipe down the tables?" Doyoung asks, somewhat appalled.

Jaehyun is unimpressed. If there's one good thing Doyoung has to say about him, it's that he has a flawless 'I'm only here for the paycheck' part-timer look.

"It's _clean,_ Doyoung. Take it or leave it," Jaehyun replies with a roll of his eyes, then makes his way back to the counter.

Doyoung quietly stares at the towel before wiping it over his face.

"It's weird when you call me that."

Though Jaehyun's head turns sideways, he doesn't meet Doyoung's gaze with his own. "That's your name, isn't it?"

"I mean." The towel is put aside on the table. Doyoung does another sigh, louder than the previous, sinking into the chair, his damp clothes sounding a wet _slosh._ "It's not, technically. But I've lived it for so long now that it feels like it is. I try not to forget about Doevil but sometimes I just care more about the local supermarket having those special sale days or my detergent running out."

There's a quiet pause until Doyoung hears Jaehyun's soft snickering.

"Hey," Doyoung says firmly, his lips pressed together. "You can't tell me Holy Warrior Justice's been having a flattering time here because I _know_ you haven't. You work part time at a pizza place for God's sake."

"So now you're speaking God's name? Good lord."

Jaehyun shakes his head disapprovingly, though there's a lingering smile that indicates he's joking. Poking fun at Doyoung.

The oven runs loudly and the aroma of baked dough and cheese fills the room. Jaehyun works diligently, with his sleeves rolled up and washing his hands when necessary.

It's strange to observe his sworn lifelong enemy baking a pizza for him at midnight. To see, in his memories, Jaehyun flying with magnificent wings, clad in golden armor, clutching his legendary holy saber then contradict that image with the sight of Jaehyun, in his soaking wet uniform, pulling a fresh pizza out of an oven is like a dream, in the worst possible sense.

Sometimes Doyoung wishes this was all a dream. That he'd wake up to his obsidian castle, to his crows perched on the window and the Council screeching his name in indignation. To another day of the burning fire in the skies and ground alike and Jaehyun's holy light that tries to vanquish Doyoung's darkness.

(Somewhere along the timeline of centuries, they'd both come to the conclusion that they'd never truly defeat one another. They knew their quarrels would never come to an end, and that was the reason why Doyoung looked forward to another new day of his blade clashing against Jaehyun's holy saber.

In his life of chaos under the watchful eye of the Council and God's damnation, Doyoung, at least, had one means to stability.)

"Small veggie pizza."

Jaehyun places the pizza in front of Doyoung. He doesn't move—no, he's _waiting_ for Doyoung to take a bite.

Doyoung slowly glances to Jaehyun, unsure where he should begin.

"Jaehyun, there's no olives."

Jaehyun doesn't budge. "I hate olives."

"Jaehyun—" Doyoung sucks in a sharp breath. "Jaehyun, _I'm_ the one eating the pizza. The veggie pizza is supposed to have olives. It's listed in the menu."

Still doesn't budge. "No."

" _No?_ "

Casually, Jaehyun brings up a chair from the neighboring table to the opposite end of Doyoung's and sits. 

"You're not the only one eating the pizza."

Before Doyoung has the chance to say anything to that, Jaehyun picks up a slice and folds half of it into his mouth.

Doyoung sputters a series of unbelieving scoffs. "Are you serious? I paid for this."

"Yes. And I'm hungry," replies Jaehyun with ease, already picking up his second slice.

And so Doyoung determines that half the pizza (and his hard-earned 11,000 won) will be sitting in Jaehyun's stomach if he doesn't act now, and snatches his own warm piece, strings of cheese refusing to let go.

When they're both full and Doyoung remembers the state of the library he left it in, he panics and is just about to leave when Jaehyun taps him on the shoulder with his ~~holy saber~~ umbrella.

It's a gesture he's thankful for and Doyoung accepts the umbrella with a curt nod, but then Jaehyun reminds him that it's _his_ and he needs to return it the next day. 

Doyoung reacts to the note with another airy scoff. But as he's walking down the street, nicely shielded from the rain, he oddly finds himself looking forward to doing just that.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/purpIecity) [cc](https://curiouscat.qa/pasupa)


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